The Brainfever Bird, Confused by Seasons

keeps waking me, even though it’s nowhere

near monsoon. At two in the morning,

and for every hour after, the trees brim

with its cooing. None of it sounds

like, Where are you, my love? The rains

are coming. Dear son, sister, where are

you? My eyes are gone. Instead, a fierce

insistence that the beyond will break through

the present, the way darkness fringes

around the house, making our dogs bark

in confusion. The whole night charged

like a hymn of warning. At dawn

I expect to see a small dead creature laid

at our door—a symbol of the crescendo

of losses to come. Time’s hidden kingdom.

But there is nothing. Unless you count

the go away come back whispers through

fronds of palmyra, the stalled clock

on the kitchen wall. It’s too easy to say,

I’m here, you’re here, what are we

making of it? But, oh, moonlight! Oh,

drowning! That we have a voice at all.